Fake It - OP

Chapter 29

Race day in Melbourne.

Thankfully, being that this race is Oscar's home race, most of his week leading up to the grand prix was filled with media and sponsor interviews for Oscar as well as a special for sky sports with his parents where they spent the day touring around his old karting track. His busyness throughout the week allowed us to keep our distance. I spent my time being a tourist or reading a book relaxing. The day Oscar was gone with his parents I slept the whole day, turns out jet lag is harder than I thought to get over. Without Ange being like my personal photographer it was harder to keep my social media updated, but I managed to get a few good photos of myself on the beach one day and posted some of those. Oscar and I ended up only seeing each other for the occasional dinner with his parents, and in his bedroom in the evenings. We left a minimum of three feet of distance between us at all times but managed to easily keep up our façade and the public and more importantly, Mark and Oscar's parents, saw no evidence to doubt our relationship. Oscar and I ended up taking turns on the floor at night, when I woke up the morning after he moved me from the desk to his bed it took almost an hour of arguing to get him to agree to at maximum going back and forth. His agreement to sleep in his damn bed only came when I agreed to let him create a makeshift bed on the floor beside his actual one. Which included layering almost twenty combined blankets and pillows. I wasn't going to complain, the carpet wasn't very comfortable in the first place, but he did a well enough job that neither of us minded taking turns. But the two nights we spent sharing a bed, those days were over. I had made sure of that the night I kissed him.

Thankfully for the past couple of days, Oscar put up with me ordering him to sleep in the actual bed and not the blanket mound on the floor. We argued he insisted we take turns for fairness, but I had made a fool of myself by admitting my feelings, and Oscar had made it clear that our relationship was nothing but for the benefit of his career. After shoving his own words back in his face about how much rest and proper preparation was for his sport, reluctantly he had taken the bed. He wanted to shut me out fine, but in or out of a relationship, I was not going to be the person to wreck his dreams because of a stupid mattress. In the end, I think he must've been thankful for giving in to my arguments since the comfortable mattress had obviously helped him get some much-needed rest. After qualifying yesterday, I relished a slight bit of satisfaction when he qualified fourth. Better than Lando by almost a tenth who followed in eighth.

"Good luck," I said to Oscar as he let go of my hand to move toward the entrance to the garages. We more or less decided that holding hands was necessary to obtain our act, but anything else, the hugging, the checking in on each other, seemed to be gone. He didn't say anything, only gave me a curt nod before disappearing into the back entrance. My anxieties seemed to raise especially high this weekend in the paddock. With so many more cameras than last weekend centred around Oscar and me by consequence, I left feeling like I hadn't curled my hair right, worn the right clothes, smiled enough, or sold our act enough for the cameras. If Oscar noticed my nerves this weekend at all, he didn't show it. I figured he was nervous enough, and why should he care, we aren't anything to each other.

The walk back to the Mclaren hospitality from the garages was short but walking through the sea of media had me feeling grateful for the few drama courses I took in high school. The cameras swarmed and shutters clicked I managed to hold on to my smile and make it to the hospitality doors before anyone could notice it was fake. The cool air-conditioned air hit me like a brick in contrast to the outside and goosebumps spread throughout my body, up my arms and down my bare legs. The dress I bought at a shop downtown Melbourne on Thursday fit me like a glove today, it's flowy layers and simple elegance made me stand out, but the amount of bare skin showing on my legs was proving to be a deficit inside where the air was much cooler. All weekend I have been avoiding Oscar's driver's room, lest we get stuck accidentally in there together again with Oscar's trainer outside. Instead, I have been spending my time in the large hospitality room. That is, whenever I'm not in the garage with the other spectators like Oscar specified I should be during the times the cars were out on track. Truthfully, I didn't mind, watching the cars from the pitlane and the back of the garage made me feel like just an F1 fan. Not just a part of a media ploy.